New Paradigm

Our Foresights and Insights

Why does it matter?

Assessing if we are in the midst of a paradigm shift is twice crucial.

First, and foremost, as human beings and actors living within societies, if such a change happens, then we need to be ready for the upheavals that precede and accompany such deep revolutions, as stakes, both ideological and material, are at work to try blocking change. We also need to understand what is happening to take the right decisions in our lives, with the right timing, to mitigate adverse impacts and favour positive ones.

Second, in terms of strategic foresight and warning analysis, the deepest layers of ideas organizing societies and their interactions are fundamental frameworks, within which any understanding must be located. If changes are in the making, then they will forcibly alter the future, while the present is most probably already being affected, giving rise to a feeling of unpredictability.

Actually, it is not so much that there is a novel unpredictability settling in, but that the lenses through which the world is analysed and then acted upon are inadequate.

As a result, and after having made a first assessment (“Towards a New Paradigm“) of the paradigmatic shift at work, we need to monitor carefully weak and rising signals of the evolutions taking place to constantly enhance our understanding, steer our decisions and thus enhance the odds to avoid surprise.

Find out below our latest foresights and insights on the emergence of a new paradigm and a new international order

This article focuses on Deep Learning, the sub-field of Artificial Intelligence that leads the current exponential development of the sector. As we seek to envision how a future AI-powered world will look and what it will mean to its actors, notably in terms of politics and geopolitics, it is indeed fundamental to first understand what is AI.
We shall first give examples of how Deep Learning is used in the real world. We distinguish two types of activities: classical AI-powered activities and totally new AI-activities, related to the very emergence of DL. In both cases we shall point out their revolutionary potential.
Then, we shall take a deeper dive in the world of Deep Learning, taking as practical example the evolution of Google’s DeepMind AI-DL program initially developed to win against human Go masters: AlphaGo, then AlphaGo Zero and finally AlphaZero. After briefly presenting where DL is located within AI, we shall focus first on Deep Neural Networks and Supervised Learning. Second we shall look at the latest evolution with Deep Reinforcement Learning and start wondering if a new AI-DL paradigm, which could revolutionise the current dogma regarding the importance of Big Data, is not emerging.

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

➚ ➃ Reinforced jihadist front in Western Egypt➚➃Challenges to Egypt as it is squeezed between the Sinai and Western fronts➚➄ Survival of the Islamic State➚➄ Islamic State resurgence in the MENA region,

This article stresses the paradoxical character of a U.S. decline, and addresses the impossibility for the U.S. to accept its demise as superpower. It applies this framework to the case of the 2017 tensions with North Korea, and deduces a possible future path for the U.S. course of action, as well as possible levers regarding the U.S. … Continue reading The Paradox of U.S. Decline … and the Tensions with North Korea→

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

➚ ? ➃ Short term – Willingness of Iraq to capitalize further on their military victory against the Kurds, notably capturing Kurdish oilfields (uncertainty)➘ ? Medium to longer term – capacity of Iraq to govern legitimately over its multi-sectarian multi-ethnic population (critical uncertainty)➚➃ /➄ Iraq strength and international support ➘ ➂Legitimacy of Iraqi Kurdish political authorities and parties➘ Prospects for Iraqi Kurds’

Impact on Issues and Uncertainties

? Degree of influence of Russia – and now possibly Iran – on Turkey compared with Turkey’s perception of threat related to a Kurdish polity on its southern flank (critical uncertainty)➚➚➃ Turkey’s perception of threat➚➚➚ ➃ to➂ Survival of the Kurdish-led Federation of Northern Syria➚➚➄ to ➂Constructive peace for Syria➘➃to➂Middle East Tension➚ Iran influence➚➚ ➃Russia influence➘Threat to Israel➚➚ ➃ U.S.

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Front Page Image: European Southern
Observatory: The moon and the arc of the Milky Way -
ESO Photo Ambassador Stéphane Guisard captured this astounding panorama from the site of ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, in the Chilean Andes. The 5000-metre-high and extremely dry Chajnantor plateau offers the perfect place for this state-of-the-art telescope, which studies the Universe in millimetre- and submillimetre-wavelength light.